You’ll know that I’m all for taking your yoga business online but when it comes to growing your local community, yoga events are the best place to start.

– You can test out an idea (workshop, theme, concept) and validate it in-person at your yoga event before creating an online version

– You can record the entire yoga event and use it as part of your online offering

– You can invite your yoga event attendees to continue to practice with you online

But even if you’re not yet considering teaching online [here’s what you need to get started!], hosting yoga events can help you to quickly grow your community, expand your network and make money!

Today I’m sharing strategies that I used to sell out at least twenty yoga suppers and multiple “themed” yoga events in London during the first two years of running my yoga business, Good Yoga Life.

1. WORK TOGETHER

Working with partners to create, host and promote events is one of the BEST ways to get known and sell out your event.

Be mindful in your choice of partners and ask yourself:

Are they aligned with my values?

Is their audience similar to my own?

Do they have a larger social reach than my own?

Healthy food brands, restaurants and wellness products are an obvious match but you could also look at clothing, media outlets such as yoga magazines, studios and not forgetting other yoga teachers!

You should also work with partners to offer an event goodie bag packed with health, wellness and yoga related products. People love goodie bags and it’s a really great way to offer additional value, especially if the value of your goodie bag is more than the cost of the event itself!

2. BE UNIQUE

When crafting your events, it’s super important to be unique! You want to stand out from the countless workshops, all day intensives, retreats and other yoga events that are taking place in your area, so you’ll need to make your event different.

And you can do this by focusing on your niche and finding something that excites both you and your ideal students – that’s your sweet spot!

Can you put a unique spin on your event to make it even more special?

If you dig deep you’ll be able to find something that will make your event different. You can also make your event unique by finding a unique location or venue so get your thinking cap on and come up with a list of venues to reach out to – and then make contact! Send those emails, go and visit them and start getting your yoga event moving!

3. GET FEATURED

This flows nicely from number two…because if your event is unique, you’re more likely to get it covered online and in print.

My events were featured in many magazines and online blogs including Time Out and even Grazia Magazine, who sent a journalist to cover Yoga Supper Club as part of a feature on 20-somethings swapping clubbing for healthier nights out.

Securing features like this means building relationships with the right people and the best place to start is to create a list of where you’d like to be featured – and the names and emails to contact!

Then make contact, invite journalists to attend for free and make sure you continue to contact them with a press release every time you have a new event.

4. HIGHLIGHT THE BENEFITS

One of the best ways to promote your event via email marketing and on social media is to highlight the benefits of your event.

Come up with five benefits and turn these into a mini series of posts and emails to share over a period of time. It’s much more effective to focus on the benefits of your event than the features e.g date and time.

Benefits could include:

– Relaxing and switching off from your weeK

– Spending time catching up with friends

– trying, learning and experiencing something new

Gather images, write the copy and schedule.

5. USE VIDEO

Video is a great way to entice your community to attend your event, especially because Facebook and Instagram LOVE video. These networks favour video and will therefore extend your organic reach so that more of your audience see your video.

If this is your first event and you don’t have video yet, getting on video face to face to talk about the benefits of attending your event is just as good.

During your event, make someone responsible for taking lots of video clips.

You can then upload these clips into iMovie and create a short video that you can share when you launch the next event.

6. GO CROSS PLATFORM

As well as having a dedicated page on your website to promote your event, you should also create pages on multiple booking platforms. Eventbrite and Billetto are both good options to get your event seen by new people who may be searching for yoga events in their area.

It does mean that you’ll have to manage bookings a little more carefully but that’s a small price to pay for the extended reach.

Some booking platforms also send out emails to recommend local events so try reaching out to the platform to ask for a feature.

The information you share on your website and on these booking platforms should always focus on the why first. Most event organisers start with the features of their event – the what and how – but you should actually start by telling people WHY they should book your event.

Why? Because this information is what will get them excited and encourage them to read more.

Include testimonials from previous students who have attended your classes and events and always include a strong call to action so that people know how and where to book.

7. PRICE IT RIGHT

Firstly, don’t underprice yourself.

Instead, look at how you can offer maximum value (see goodie bags above!) and a high quality event experience and charge what that is worth.

Then use pricing strategies such as an early bird and a special deal for friends booking together.

If you’re struggling to fill your yoga event, consider running a competition on Instagram that requires entrants to tag a friend they’d like to bring to your event. Pick your winner and direct message a personalised discount code to each of the other entrants. Make them feel special in a runner up kind of way 🙂

8. COMMUNICATE!

Make sure you communicate with your event guests regularly. Send a booking confirmation email to thank them for their booking and let them know that you’ll be in touch prior to the event with more details.

A few days before the event you should send out an event logistics email with arrival details – the address, how to get there, what time to arrive – as well as anything else such as what they should expect and what to bring.

9. GET FEEDBACK!

The only way you can make your next event even better is to get feedback from your event guests.

You should use any opportunities to chat with your guests during the event – ask them how they heard about it, what other similar events they attend and what sort of events they would like to attend in the future.

After the event, you should send out a thank you email with a link to a survey so that you can get written feedback and testimonials. Survey Monkey is a great free online tool for collecting feedback.

What ideas do you have for your yoga events? Share them in the comment box below.

If you’re ready to get started with running your own yoga events, download this handy checklist.